For the last few months, Devine’s Robotics team has been preparing for their 2020 San Antonio BEST Competition, and last Sunday, Dec. 6 they finally put that practice to the test on their virtual competition, where they had to demonstrate their robots capabilities through a zoom call, and attempt to score as many points as possible in a set time frame. They earned third place for competitions BEST Award and first for its Founders Award for Creative Design.

In addition to the robots presentation being reworked for Covid restrictions, the exhibit portion was completely redone.

“The exhibit this year was a lot different than our past exhibits,” senior Taylor Holman said. “Instead of building and decorating a big physical exhibit booth, we had to learn how to create a professional website to show off our robot.”

The exhibit and interview team’s effort earned 16 out of 20 available points to go towards the final score. The Marketing Team, led by Logan Gonzalez won 24 out of 25 points. The Notebook Team, led by Noah Davila won 28 out of 30 points. The Robot Team, led by Kyle Simpkins, which designed, built and programmed the robot scored a whopping 340 points, which placed the team in 12 place in the overall Robot Game Tournament. These scores qualified the team to advance to the state competition, but unfortunately due to Covid issues, they will not
compete.

“We are hoping the competition will return closer to normal next year,” sponsor James Wilcox said. “So far, they are planning to hold a state competition next year.” This is the third year in a row, and the fourth out of the last five years that the team has qualified for state.